Orchard Garden

Greenwich, CT

As one of a number of landscape components of a landscape master plan for an 18 acre ancestral historic country estate, new landscape idioms were created by turning over unproductive land into domestic scaled agricultural uses. To compliment an organic vegetable and herb garden, the adjacent open lawn area was leveled to create a serviceable plane for a fruit tree orchard. As a spatial and land use compliment, the orchard configuration echoes the geometric organization of nearby cottage, stable and greenhouse buildings. Rather than selecting the fruit trees from a commercial nursery, a variety of mature fruit trees were sourced from an update state New York commercial fruit tree farm. Trees were selected according to the client’s preferred and specific fruit variety, as well as for their shape, form, and seasonal characteristics. While quality fruit production was paramount, careful tree selection and paring was essential to establish a visually coherent and ordered collection of 6 fruit trees varieties. The trees were hand-dug before budding, transported across the Hudson River, and successfully transplanted in the spring to be ready for a hearty harvest by fall.